Clearlake Capital Group has acquired Ticket Evolution, an end-to-end software provider for the event ticketing industry.
The acquisition was completed through Victory Live, an event management and ticketing technology platform backed by Clearlake and Clearlake operating advisor, Sam Soni.
Soni said: “We are excited to add Ticket Evolution to our platform and believe that this acquisition represents an opportunity to accelerate value creation and drive optionality for rights-holders, resellers, and affiliates.
“Ticket Evolution continues to leverage its technology to drive efficiencies in the ticketing market and is enabling the shift to fully digital and mobile ticketing experiences.”
Ticket Evolution manages sports and events tickets on behalf of ticket resellers and rights-holders, through a B2B marketplace with distribution capabilities. The company’s offerings include a full-service and automated software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform providing operations needs, including ticket fulfilment and delivery.
Curtis Cheng, chief executive of Ticket Evolution, said: “Sam’s relationships with rights-holders and resellers combined with Clearlake’s access to capital and sector expertise provide levers to drive accelerated growth at Ticket Evolution.
“We believe in the company and our strategy, and we are excited to bring onboard partners who back that strategy. We are looking forward to investing in product development at the combined platform given the complementary nature of our technology and industry relationships.”
Behdad Eghbali, co-founder and managing partner and James Pade, partner and managing director of Clearlake, added: “Our acquisition of Ticket Evolution underscores our fundamental growth strategy for VictoryLive, which looks to expand relationships with and support the growth of event managers by investing in technology and data.
“We are thrilled to leverage our O.P.S approach in partnership with Sam, Curtis, and the management team.”
Sidley Austin LLP acted as legal advisor to Clearlake and Victory Live, while Nutter McClennen and Fish LLP acted as legal advisor to Ticket Evolution.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.